A Taste of Medicine: An Overview of Careers in Medicine

Dr. John Gaisford ought to know a lot about medicine. A retired surgeon, he devoted sixty years of his life to the practice of surgery. He served as chairman of the Department of Surgery at Western Pennsylvania Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1970 to 1984 and founded the hospital’s Burn/Trauma Center in 1970. Throughout these years, he made a habit of becoming familiar with a wide variety of medical fields and the people who work in them.A Taste of Medicine is a compilation of interviews and often amusing stories that bring the world of medicine to life. Real people — doctors, nurses, physical therapists, etc. — talk candidly about the reasons why they chose their particular field, what the challenges are, and what keeps them going. They give us hard facts and practical information but they also leave us with a sense of what it is like to work in medicine. In addition, Dr. Gaisford tackles some of the “hot” issues such as malpractice and prescription error that are front-page news.“The patient comes first” emerges as the underlying theme of the book. But the book is not only about medical professionals helping patients, but also about institutions and individuals who find extraordinary ways to reach out to those in need. Dr. Gaisford tells the story of one of these individuals, a patient of his who, having suffered severe burns in an automobile accident, later went on to become a nurse in West Penn’s Burn/Trauma Center. Whether you are contemplating a medical career, have already embarked on one, or are just plain curious about the world of medicine, you will receive a healthy dose of information that will be easy to swallow.